Welcome to the CFO Thought Leader podcastOur mission is to bring you personal firsthand accounts of CFOs who are driving change within their organizations.CFO Thought Leader is all about inspiring finance professionals to take a leadership leap. We know that by hearing about the successes — (and yes, also the failures) — of others, today’s CFOs can more confidently chart their own leadership paths across the enterprise and take inspired action.
Category Archives: Podcasts
469: A Strategic Leader Gets His Bearings | Jim Peters, CFO, Whirlpool Corporation
Schooled in M&A When Whirlpool CFO Jim Peters joined the company at the director level 15 years ago, he was thrust into the thick of a pivotal M&A deal that also wound up generating extraordinary value from a career development standpoint. Originally assigned to help manage the accounting facets of the proposed Maytag acquisition, Peters…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:49:22)
468: A Cross-Functional Black Belt | Justin Spencer, CFO, Vocera Communications
A Cross-Functional Black Belt Vocera Communications CFO Justin Spencer’s strategic-finance breakthrough had little to do with corporate finance and everything to do with the drivers of strategic success. In an earlier CFO role, the tech executive had heard just about every ERP horror story there is—about sordid scope creep, sketchy implementation firms, unending projects, the…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:58:30)
467: The Exponential Value of Saying, “Thank You!” | Elena Gomez, CFO, Zendesk
Zendesk CFO Elena Gomez followed up a top-notch education (a degree from UC–Berkeley’s Haas School of Business) with a series of finance executive positions within some highly impressive companies—Charles Schwab, Visa, Salesforce, and, since April 2016, Zendesk, a customer experience and help desk platform company that's posted remarkable, largely organic, growth in recent years. Despite…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:36:11)
466: Energizing the Realm of Early-Stage Pharma | Jeffrey Farrow, CFO, Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT)
An Early Dose of Pharma Start-Up Experience When Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT) CFO Jeffrey Farrow says that he took the corporate-finance career path less traveled, he really means it. As an undergraduate biology major, Farrow and a couple of entrepreneurial-minded postdocs hit upon a way to identify a protein thought to cause Alzheimer’s. The group…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:39:42)
465: Catching the Next Wave, Again and Again | Steve Cakebread, CFO, Yext
A Humble Take on a Hall-of-Fame Career Yext CFO Steve Cakebread’s resume is extraordinary, given the preeminent companies he’s worked for (HP, Silicon Graphics, Autodesk, Salesforce.com, Pandora, and Yext), the new technology categories that he’s helped to bring to market, and the staggering growth that those organizations posted under his corporate-finance leadership. Cakebread joined Salesforce…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:49:22)
464: Shortening Your Customer’s Time to Value | Gordy Brooks, CFO, FinancialForce
Problem-Solving Strengthens the CEO–CFO Partnership One of FinancialForce CFO Gordy Brooks’s most valuable early career-building experiences began by butting heads with his CEO. The chief executive insisted on issuing sales commissions on a weekly basis—an ask that would have most finance chiefs pulling their hair out. After the CEO stuck to his guns in the…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:43:56)
463: Determining Your Course of Action | Jennifer Ceran, CFO, Smartsheet
Two Ways to Get to the CFO Office A regular on Treasury and Risk Management magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in Finance” list, Smartsheet CFO Jennifer Ceran joined the company, a SaaS platform for managing collaborative work and automating work processes, in 2016 with impressive Silicon Valley bona fides. She’s served as CFO and in…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:43:56)
462: Understanding What Drives the Numbers | Justin Crotty, CFO & COO, Anaqua
Props to Anaqua CFO and COO Justin Crotty for allowing us to first zero-in on his early career chapters when the economy showed no mercy. Crotty, who joined the leading provider of intellectual property management software and services about three years ago, launched his career with a tech consultancy at the height of the dot.com…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:39:06)
461: Authoring Your Finance Career Adventure | Andrew Jackson, CFO, Ra Medical Systems
High-Risk, High-Reward Career-Building At first glance, Ra Medical Systems CFO Andrew Jackson’s 20 years as a finance executive in life sciences and technology companies seem have progressed in a traditional, orderly manner. A closer inspection of Jackson’s experience reveals that taking early-career risks can pay off handsomely. Jackson joined the manufacturer of laser-based solutions for…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:32:41)
460: Advancing Down Your Growth Path | Chris Menard, CFO, BlueSnap
Leading with Analytics, but Accounting Comes First Of the three traditional paths to the finance chief’s seat, BlueSnap CFO Chris Menard took the approach less traveled, and it’s made quite a difference. While most fledgling finance executives begin their journey in public accounting or investment banking, Menard parlayed an undergraduate experience rich with entrepreneurial grooming…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:31:59)
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